FIONA JOY HAWKINS, When Shadows Talk

With some of the most profound music and thoughtful, soulful and transcendent piano music I have heard these past two decades, Fiona Joy Hawkins’ beautiful expressions have been like a friend to return to every few years for comfort, solace, uplift and inspiration. Anything I write about this multi-talented Australian composer/performer is done so through the prism of the angelic presence her music has been to me since I began writing about and reviewing her upon the release of her second album ICE – Piano Slightly Chilled and Blue Dream back in the mid-2000s.

When she released my longtime favorite Angels Above My Piano in 2020 (the perfect soundtrack to help everyone through the pandemic), it was like she read my mind about what her music is to me and of course, thousands of others around the world. Along the way, it’s also been a privilege to write about FLOW – the all-star new age ensemble she formed in the late 2010s with Will Ackerman, Lawrence Blatt and Jeff Oster – and see her perform both solo and with that group. Chronicling her career has been a grand privilege for many years, and it’s wonderful and elevating to hear her in top form, sounding more dynamic and passionate than ever, on her latest collection When Shadows Talk, a truly majestic work that flows (pun intended) as one of her most personal works ever.

Over the course of these 12 magnificent, heartfelt, thoughtful and free-flowing pieces, Fiona weaves something of a magical spell by sharing the innermost truths of her creative process as an artist and inviting listeners to peek behind the veil to hear the behind the scenes workings of, as she says, “what it takes to dig deep enough to find valuable conversations.” To discover and share these sacred elements of her creative center, she went into a rare self-imposed lockdown, an exile whose stark environment allowed her to explore ideas either usually obscured, suppressed or bubbling just beneath the surface, both personally and in the context of what she calls “broader community discussion.”   

“The concept that resulted in the music of When Shadows Talk was to lock myself up to find inspiration as I was struggling to do the very thing I wanted – write a new album.  I isolated myself (more than living in a small quiet village), and for six weeks, only ventured out for food.  I got out all the photo albums, drank wine, read the world news, cried tears and found subjects both from my own experience, the world around me and inside the space I confined myself to. The albums touches on subjects ranging from mental health, war, angels, volcanoes and being different. It sounds extreme and unhealthy (which it was), but it was necessary to find valuable conversations, even though it left me feeling depressed and miserable at times.”

That’s as honest as you’ll ever hear an artist talk about their work – allowing herself to be vulnerable, even miserable, for the sake of imparting her authentic self, drawing our hearts in and allowing us to partake in these very personal inner (and by extension, outer) realities. As Fiona wrote in her notes on the project, When Shadows Talk offers musical storytelling that explores inward and outward reflection.  

Making the work even more of a monumental milestone in Fiona’s career is the fac that there were many unfortunate technical obstacles on her way to ultimately recording the album on a 97-key handcrafted Australian Stuart & Sons Grand Piano. First, there was the need to find another piano on the first day of recording. From there, it was a tragicomedy of errors, with three broken strings, a “buzz” in A above middle C (A4) caused by a screwdriver left inside the piano, wood-chopping, lawn-mowing, dog barking, council truck (road works), rain (tin roof), building frame expansion and contraction, power outage (for 2 hours), mic connection issues. She admits she probably made everything worse by hitting the wall, definitely figuratively, probably literally, from exhaustion and frustration. All in the service of creating music that reflects her truest self, her deepest artistry. “I’m one of those people who refuses to give up,” the pianist says, “and that is what makes the album such a personal achievement.”

Longtime Fiona fans will notice that there are a few “covers” of her previous material, pristine solo piano arrangements of two orchestrated pieces from her uniquely titled 2013 masterwork 600 Years in a Moment. “The Lost Ballerina” and “The Journey.” With such an extensive discography, it made sense to mine prior gold for stellar gems that fit in thematically with the close to the heart autobiographical nature of much of the album.

The nostalgic reflection “The Lost Ballerina” taps into the reality of herself as a child ballerina realizing around age ten that she would grow too big to follow this dream – so in essence that realization was a stepping stone to launching and fulfilling her dream to be a pianist/composer. Along those lines, she composed the elegant, highly spirited “The Journey” to cover the turbulent life she had led to that point – and here, in this context, it’s included to remind herself and her listeners that inner work is still being done as her outer artistry continues to evolve.

When Shadows Talk begins in a gentle, reflective mood, a realm of conscious, meditative “Stasis” to help her achieve a sense of equilibrium amidst life’s crazy ups and downs. Those unusual themes Fiona mentions as part of the album’s mosaic of inspiration start with the alternately soft/tender and brooding, offbeat and atonal “The Ghosts of War Are Marching,” which strikes like a dramatic mini-opera about those who lose their lives pursuing their beliefs, without ceremony, victory or even acknowledgement. “I wanted to imagine that the ghosts would somehow rise up and continue their journey,” Fiona says. “I had to do it in a way that had some unevenness and fragility, but without sounding like a wobbly piano player!” Mission powerfully accomplished.

The second unusual subject/image she shares is “Lava and Snow” a haunting ballad sparked by her fascination watching a volcanic eruption near Grindavik, Iceland on YouTube. To record video for the album, and for the sake of the aforementioned authenticity, she has since visited Iceland and its volcanic sites to record video firsthand! The piece that follows, the hypnotic, gracefully and sweetly fluttering “Angel’s Message” is trademark spiritual Fiona, directly inspired by the image of an angel framed in a nearby mirror. The Angel painting by David Vivian was on the wall behind her, so she felt it odd to see the reflection there so perfectly. “The angel looks like someone we all know but like no one we have ever met,” she says. I’ve always called that “the angel effect,” and Fiona captures the mystery perfectly, later echoing the emotion on the soft-spoken, lilting lullaby “The Mirror.”

The pianist gets to the truest heart and soul of the collection on tracks 6-8, tapping into the concept of mental health and the state of mind she is in when about to create a body of work on via the blend of darker shades and lighthearted musings of “In the Deep,” followed by the search for artistic individuality on the defiantly passionate expressions of “Outside the Circle” and the cathartic creative breakthrough she chronicles on the reflective, soul-cleansing “Finding the Clearing.”

Discussing “Outside the Circle,” Fiona says. “Musicians need a unique defining style that allows them a career as original creators. It is both a curse and a gift to be different.  Media and radio want to pigeonhole you, but they need clarification that it’s OK to like, review, or play your music.  It tests their ability to make judgments without knowing how many awards an artist has or the size of their audience. The gatekeepers that decide our fate determine what level of audience access we will be given.  I’m happy to dwell outside the circle and take what comes to me, fair or unfair!  It’s a good place to arrive at.”

She wraps When Shadows Talk in an unexpected way, following those heavy introspections with the story of  a bird hitting the glass, using the harsh reality of that image as metaphor (told via jarring hard, dark chords) to reflect on the reality of beauty in sadness and sadness in beauty. The song emerged from a loud noise she heard that prompted her to race outside to see a brown bird unable to move and trying to keep its eyes open. She picked up the bird, noticed its beautiful golden-brown feathers and realized it had a broken neck before it died as she held it. The concluding track “The Brown Bird” feels like an elegy to the spirit of this creature and what this moment of passage means for us all.    

“I hope those who listen to the album find a work of beauty that holds something of value,” Fiona says. “That would be my highest hope, to make people feel something.”